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Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.
I wrote in this space yesterday that Vladyslav Heraskevych’s story was a mirror. It reflected the eternal deception of how sports and politics do not intersect. The reality is the intersection has always existed at every Olympics, and on Thursday, the most memorable day of the Milano-Cortina Olympics so far, the intersection simply became impossible to ignore.
The Ukrainian skeleton athlete, a medal contender at the Milano-Cortina Games, was not allowed to compete after refusing a last-minute plea from the International Olympic Committee to not race with the helmet that honours his country’s athletes and coaches killed in the war with Russia.
It is now a massive global story — and rightly so. Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde wrote a powerful column worth reading. The New York Times called it “Games’ biggest crisis.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, posted repeatedly about it on his social media accounts. Even Hollywood actors weighed in.
“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Zelenskyy wrote. “ Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise.”
The IOC will say it cannot set precedent here but they also make the rules on what constitutes expression. More to the point, the political neutrality is hard to swallow from an organization that coddled up to Vladimir Putin by rewarding Russia the 2014 Sochi Games. Heraskevych has appealed his competition ban with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and Reuters reported that CAS said it would review the matter with urgency given the circumstances. But the competition is also over.
The final word here belongs to Heraskevych and if I can editorialize for a moment, I think he leaves Italy as an Olympic hero. To give up his Olympic dreams for a larger principle is a decision history will judge him well on.
The athletes always save the Games, as the expression goes, and the athletes performed with magic on Thursday. Italian Francesca Lollobrigida won a gold medal in an absolutely thrilling women’s 5,000-metre speed skating final — her second gold medal of the games. Lollobrigida’s time of six minutes 46.17, was just 0.10 seconds ahead of Merel Conijn of Holland.
The Italian with the fantastic last name also won Italy’s first gold medal last Saturday in the women’s 3,000 metres. She is only the sixth woman in Olympic history to win both the 3,000 and 5,000 in the same Olympics. Phenomenal.
Who will star on Friday?
The biggest star in figure skating hits the ice Friday in what looks like a meeting with destiny. Ilia Malinin, with the memorable “Quad God” nickname, will compete in the men’s free skate in an attempt to win his first individual Olympic gold medal. Malinin’s skate helped Team USA win gold in the team event on Sunday at the Milano Skating Arena.
The competition starts at 1 p.m. ET, though you will have to wait a couple of hours for Malinin, who skates last in the No. 24 position. The American scored 108.16 in the short program to lead the pack. Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama (skating in the No. 23 spot) and Adam Siao Him Fa (No. 22) of France are the ones who will try to chase Malinin down. If the Quad God wins gold, he will become a household name in America.
Another massive Olympic star competes on Friday as Norway’s Johannes Høsflot Klæbo goes for his eighth career gold medal and third in Milano Cortina as he competes in the men’s cross-country skiing 10km freestyle (5:45 a.m. ET)
Australian snowboard star Scotty James, Japan’s Yuto Totuska and Ryusei Yamada and American Alessandro Barbieri are the ones to watch in the men’s halfpipe final. The first run begins at 1:30 p.m. ET.
Olympic imagery
Win an Olympic downhill, get engaged, all in the same seven-day stretch.
Numbers to know
54 – Age of U.S. curler Rich Ruohonen, who became America’s oldest Winter Olympian when he stepped onto the ice during his team’s 8-3 loss by Switzerland on Thursday.
50.2 – The article of the Olympic Charter which states that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”
35 – Age of Italian skier Federica Brignone, who earned the first Olympic gold medal of her acclaimed career by winning the women’s super-G on Thursday. She is the oldest female gold medalist in women’s alpine.
17 – Age of South Korean Choi Gaon, who took down Chloe Kim to win the women’s halfpipe. Kim, who finished with a silver, was attempting to become the first Olympian in history — male or female — to win three straight gold medals in the event.
7 – Medals for Sweden’s women cross-country team at the Milano-Cortina Olympics, including two golds for Frida Karlsson and two silver for Ebba Andersson.
What we’re reading around the web
► Here’s how Cortina’s ice tech, dubbed curling’s Michael Jackson, prepares the Olympic ice. By Julia Frankel of The Associated Press
► Italy’s RAI journalists escalate revolt after Olympic commentary fiasco. By Giselda Vagnoni of Reuters
► Inside the secret text group of U.S. figure skating Olympic gold medallists known as ‘the OGM chain’ By Dave Skretta of The Associated Press
► At the Winter Olympics, drone cameras are pushing limits for viewers — and athletes. By Lindsey Schell of The Athletic
► ‘I’m happy to defend my country’: meet Greenland’s Olympian defying Donald Trump. By Andy Bull of The Guardian.
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